This fall football season I plan on running a basic single wing offense with my youth football team age 8 & 9 (3rd & 4th Graders). I have been reading a lot of books, blogs and website on this to get prepared for the season that is 6 month away… yeah I know it is early. I want to know what is the best book or website out there for the single wing offense at the youth level? The other question I have is how the plays are called and what the hole numbers are? With an unbalanced line the 8 hole on my traditional I-formation is now between the second tackle and my end… do I just have a 10 hole now on the outside for sweeps? In the I-Formation we had a 36 Blast where the 3 was the 3 back (TB) and the 6 was the hole. I am guessing I can still label my plays this way or is there a better way? Let me know… Thanks, Coach Chadwick

Hi, I coach an 8-9 year old youth football team and I am the defensive coordinator. I have set our defensive formation for the year at a 5-3 monster as most teams at this league mainly run the ball. I helped the defensive coordinator from last year run some of this defense and we were pretty successful. Now with me heading it up I was wondering about the strategy for my play calling? I guess I want to know when is the best time to call a certain play and on what down and what yards to go? Here are some of our plays; OLB Blitz, MLB Blitz, Cornerback Blitz, Monster Blitz, Slant Right/Left, a center smash (MLB and NT line up on line and crush the center), a twist (DE and OLB stunt) and of course our 6-2 goal line (I know this if for short yardage and goal line stance). We of course has our base defense where each player is responsible for their gap assignments. When is it good to call a blitz? 1st and 10? 2nd at 4? 3rd and long or what… I can’t really find anything on this. What are the basic rules to follow to call these plays? Let me know. Coach Chad

So, I had my first game of the season (12/5) coaching my sons 3rd and 4th Grade Basketball Team. I am a first year coach, as a lot of us are, and I haven't worked on any plays yet at practice. We have worked mostly on the fundamentals with some game type scrimages as well to get them use to the flow of the game. I got to the games early to watch some of the other teams playing before us. It seemed liked every team had set plays calling out a 1, or 2 play or maybe a closed fist or open hand for another play. I am not sure if I am so far behind coaching my kids already or what, but my team got beat 36 to 17. We did manage a slight comeback as it was 23 to 5 at half. The other team kept running there 2 & 3 positions down to pick the 4 and 5 positions. Then their PG would drive around, either pass it to a player or take it to the hoop. We also need to work on a little more man to man defense switching with picks and proper body position. As you can probably imagine, some of my kids were quite down because of the score but I kept building them up telling them that the score doesn't matter and to keep playing tough and working together as a team. The comeback helped put some smiles on there face as we eventually had two kids doing a good pick and roll. Now my questions is... What basketball plays are best for kids this age? Again, this is my first year coach and I wasn't on a b-ball team to learn plays when I was a kid. I want to develop a set a plays that are easy to teach to the kids as well as easy for them to learn. They are a great bright group of kids and I want to get some type of team chemistry going and a few plays would help. I have two practices this coming week and a game this coming Friday 12/12 so it would be great to get some ideas to implement at practice. Please help. Thanks...

I am a New Coach for my sons 3rd/4th Grade Basketball Team. I am looking for some help/advice for coaching the kids as I have coached soccer in the past but have never coached basketball. I have been reading through the forums and have found a lot of good information. One of the things I am looking for is a good warm-up practice plan. As we all know, being organized with a practice plan is key to having a great practice. I want to put together a good warm-up practice plan at the beginning of each practice. This would include; stretching, conditioning, ball handling, dribbling, shooting or whatever to do in the first 10-15 minutes of practice each time. What are some of the basic things I could use for each of these that helps improve their fundamental skills and the team can work to warm-up for each practice? PRACTICE PLAN Stretching - Basic Stretches (not sure what the basic ones are called) Ball Handling - Slaps, Tips, ??? Dribbling - Dribble Up and Down the Court, ??? Shooting - Lay-up Drills, ??? After we complete the warm-up, then we would start working on differert drills in practice. Let me know your thoughts or if this is too much. I am just trying to put together some consistency for each practice that will help the team work on their skills. Let me know if you have any suggestions.